When drilling into surfaces using a standard rotary drill, the material drilled out of the surface is normally carried back along the length of the drill and scattered as granular dust or grit in the area directly below where the hole is being drilled. In some cases the quantity of debris generated by drilling a hole is particularly noticeable, for instance, a 10 mm hole at a 5 cm depth will create nearly 4 cm3 of debris that will be scattered about the immediate area, the majority forming a pile immediately below the hole. Whilst in many industrial environments such debris would be unnoticeable, this is not the case in the home. Particularly in the DIY environment, the house-proud occupant and/or their spouse are likely to require sheeting to be put down in the vicinity around the drilling and for the area to be vacuumed immediately afterwards to avoid making the house dirty with the dust and debris. Furthermore, tables and ornaments must either be covered or removed unless they are to be thoroughly cleaned afterwards.
A related complaint is often raised against service installers (telecommunications and cable TV installers in particular) who drill many holes at a customers house to install their services, but rarely clean up after themselves.
In many circumstances it is highly desirable for the dust and debris failing from a drilling operation to be completely collected without large amounts of preparation by laving sheets and alike. In particular, in installing fixtures in a newly decorated room or drilling holes near sensitive electronic equipment that cannot easily be moved and the debris may be potentially damaging to the equipment, a simple debris collection mechanism should be desirable.
Other than using sheeting to catch the majority of the debris, no simple and inexpensive mechanisms for controlling the spread of such debris is known to be available to small-scale installation operators or to the home DIY market. Complex systems involving vacuums to suck away the dust have been developed over the years, but this usually requires additional vacuum pumps and ducting, and the vacuum is rarely powerful enough to carry all the dust and debris away.
UK patent publication number 2278190 discloses a hand tool for use with a drill. The hand tool includes a hollow body of solid construction having a through hole through which a drill bit may pass. The hand tool is held against a surface to be drilled using a handle and during drilling debris from drilling passes into the hollow body. Such a tool partially solves the problems of capturing dust and debris created while drilling. However, the tool requires a hand to hold it to the wall leaving only one hand to hold and guide a drill which for many people is not enough. If a heavy drill is used or the user needs two hands to hold or guide the drill, a further person would have to be involved to use the hand tool. The tool is only usable if drilling is perpendicular to the surface to be drilled due to the alignment of the through holes and solid body. In addition, the user's hand is close to the drill bit when drilling which may prove to be unsafe. Furthermore, having a solid body exposes the hand tool to wear around the portions that contact the drill bit. This is addressed by use of a chuck-impact ring shield or washer in the above document. However, the use of a combination of parts, some of which must be removable and replaceable increases the complexity and overall cost of the device.